Strategy

At Bessemer, we spend a lot of time mapping out the industries most fertile for disruption by startups. With a deep focus in our practice areas, we can quickly evaluate new investment opportunities, and, more importantly, bring our knowledge, track record and rolodex to the boards of our portfolio companies.

Every year we re-assess and refresh our investment hypotheses (“road maps”), re-organizing our practices appropriately. So we do have additional practice areas in development, plus others that we just haven’t yet had time to profile here.

And of course we try to remain keenly aware of areas where innovation meets market need. We use our roadmaps as guides, not limits, and stay open to the next revolutionary idea.Here are some of the practice areas where our professionals team up to find, fund and assist the entrepreneurs poised to shake things up. If you share one of these areas of interest with us, please click on that practice to read about some of our thoughts and activities there.

In addition to Bessemer's long history of successful enterprise software investing, we have been particularly focused on the emergence of Cloud Computing. We believe Cloud Computing is the most important trend in the software industry of the decade. We have been fortunate to work with many of the early pioneers in this high growth market segment, and continue to invest actively to grow our current portfolio. We define Cloud Computing as the umbrella encompassing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platforms-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Historically, we have been very active in the SaaS space and will continue to do so. However, as cloud computing has expanded beyond just providing applications as a service, so has our practice.

At Bessemer Venture Partners, we believe that our long history and successful track record in cyber security provide us a key advantage in identifying and assisting the most important security startups – our investors have been involved in starting or funding over thirty cyber security companies over the last two decades, including 6 IPOs and many more large acquisitions. By sharing our perspective on how we invest capital in this space, we hope to inspire like-minded entrepreneurs, and attract them as our partners.

BVP has a long history of investment in the financial services. The 1970s saw it investing in bank services roll-ups; thereafter it moved into areas as diverse as investment services (Quadriserve, LifeHarbor, Gerson Lehrman, Motilal Oswal and Soleil) and personal banking (Truaxis, Shriram City Financial, and Zopa). Blending technology and financial expertise and experience, the partners at BVP can understand and anticipate the changes occur in this rapidly evolving sector.

BVP has invested in healthcare-related companies for more than two decades. Drawing on our investors’ experience in medicine, science, information technology, and management, BVP has backed developers of innovative therapeutics - Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ISIP) and Sirtris (NASDAQ:SIRT); providers of healthcare service - VistaCare (NASDAQ:VSTA) and U.S. Behavioral Health (acquired by United Healthcare, NYSE:UBH); and suppliers of healthcare information technology - GMIS (NASDAQ:GMIS) and Allscripts (NASDAQ:MDRX). As the world's healthcare needs increase, we relish the opportunity to support entrepreneurs who will create the innovations of tomorrow.

India's vibrant economy offers huge potential in fulfilling demand for both domestic and export consumption. Just as BVP saw the long term opportunity when it entered Silicon Valley in the 1970s, the firm sees a similar opportunity in India driven by the growth in middle class prosperity and innovation. BVP's investment advisory team combines local knowledge and technical expertise with a global platform to help guide portfolio copmaines to global success. Since 2004, BVP has invested in 21 companies and established a 14-person Mumbai-based advisory team.

Bessemer has been investing in industry-leading IT infrastructure companies for close to forty years, yet we have never been more excited about the potential for innovation in this arena. Several key technology trends and market developments promise to transform the industry (again) in the coming decade, creating the opportunity for a new set of industry leaders to emerge.

BVP has been investing in Israel since 1992 and opened an office in Herzliya in 2007. The partners consider companies at many stages, from seed to growth, and across a number of sectors - Software, Internet, Semiconductors, Storage, Communications, and Cleantech.

As investors, we believe that the best business model ever conceived could be the marketplace model. Because marketplaces benefit from powerful network effects – supply and demand follow each other – it’s often a high-stakes battle for leadership: when one marketplace achieves undisputed leadership, it can generate huge profits, retain customers and keep competitors at bay. We admire this winner-take-all (or, occasionally, winner-take-most) dynamic, and are actively evaluating marketplace investments.

Bessemer’s history in communications spans more than three decades, dating back to companies like Ungermann-Bass, which pioneered local area networking (the term “LAN” was actually coined in the living room of BVP’s Neill Brownstein). Our investments have followed the rapid evolution of the communications landscape with many of our recent investments focused on the mobile space around the themes of mobile device penetration, the consumer experiences they enable, and the challenges these devices bring to operators.

Throughout history, the exploration of new frontiers has yielded economic bounties in the forms of resources, living space, military advantage, and scientific research. Today, our new frontiers lie in space, which humanity must eventually colonize for minerals, energy and new homelands. As Carl Sagan observed, “All civilizations become either space-faring, or extinct.”